I'd also recommend his earlier books, Shooter and Angry Moon.
Very different from his Hollywood novels, one a straight
noir, the other a horror noir hybrid, both well worth
reading. And he'll probably hate me for bringing it up, but I
recently watched Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers from his
screenplay. Very, very low budget, but a fun trashy, very
trashy spoof/homage of a private eye getting in over his
head.